Carters Lake Fishing Report August 2015

Carters: Level: 1.4 feet above full pool. Temp: Mid 80s. Clarity: Clear.

Stripers: Guide Eric Crowley reports, “Carters… what can I say but hero or zero! Been a crazy month of ups and downs with striped fish. I watched the water temps jump from 78 to 88, back to 76 degrees and even had 67-degree water up river last week. Now the main lake is in the low 80s again, and the river has settled out in the mid 70s. We went from almost no rain in June at all to some severe downpours and lake level changes in July. All this has had the fish really confused, and a lot of anglers right there with them. The stripers and hybrids are tucked away in the trees all over the lake from Fisher Creek to the last bends in the river. They are from about 30 to 60 feet deep over a wide range of bottom depths. Early in the morning you will see huge schools of fry bait about an inch long scattered over the main lake. Some schools of fish are still targeting them, while others prefer to stay in the deeper cooler water. We never saw the bite on the humps really develop like we normally do this time of year, but stripers and hybrids are back in their late summer pattern of moving in and out of the numerous submerged tree lines on Carters. Some nice schools of hybrids are showing up here and there from the dam to Ridgeway, but no real day-to-day pattern or location as they are just following the schools of bait.”

Walleye: Guide Eric Crowley reports, “July was our best month for walleye ever. We boated a bunch of large fish over 6 pounds and quite a few in the 8-lb. range. Night fishing is your best bet for late summer eyes on this body of water. Put the Hydroglow Fish Lights out, and watch the sonar. The walleye will appear on the bottom just suspended slightly. They don’t give off a typical arch but look more like a toothpick. Live baits, crawler harnesses or trolling XRaps or spoons just off the bottom in the 20-foot range around shoal markers can be very productive. We are typically running trips from 2 to 7 a.m., and on some nights catching as many as five or six fish. This pattern should hold true through the rest of August when the hot water will push them deep again until fall arrives, and the water starts to cool off. During the day, look for the fish in 70 to 80 feet of water or deep in the submerged trees like most everything else in the lake trying to stay in the shade.”